A snapshot from October and November’s 99designs Cafe

October

99designs Cafe was back in Surabaya again last month on October 29th at Cafe Heerlijk at the Central Bank Library (Perpustakaan Bank Indonesia). To celebrate the Youth Pledge Day, which falls on the day before, we handed out red & white T-shirts, the colors representing the Indonesian flag.

Big thanks to Cafe Heerlijk and the Perpustakaan Bank Indonesia for letting us use their awesome space!

During the event, we had the pleasure and honor of having Junanto Herdiawan (Iwan) as one of our speakers. He’s the Chief Economist at the Bank Indonesia Regional Office in Surabaya, as well as an author and a flying traveller (check out his awesome photos on Instagram).

Although his talk was short, it was fresh and inspiring. He spoke about how the creative industry can help increase the economical growth of a country, particularly Indonesia. There are plenty of resources, and it’s great to see that even Bank Indonesia is supporting this creative growth by providing a space where these creatives can market and promote their products:

“Currently, Indonesia’s economic growth is heading towards the extraction of natural resources, eg. coal, oil, and palm trees. Natural resources can one day be exhausted, but creativity will never run out. Where there are people, creativity exists. As time goes on, our ideas will keep on evolving,” said Iwan.

Our audience definitely believes that he was an insightful and a fun speaker to have!

Xgo from Surabaya Mural Union (SMS) shows some of the group’s best work during his presentationOur Ambassador arwino presents Iwan with the certificate of appreciation

We were also lucky to have our friends from the local creative community Surabaya Mural Union (Serikat Mural Surabaya, commonly referred to as SMS), join the event and gave a presentation. They’ve created a lot of well known mural/street artwork around Surabaya. Here are some photos of the collaboration work between SMS and our 99designers.

The finished mural that members of the SMS and 99designers collaborated on throughout the event

At its core, 99designs Cafe is about collaboration and networking – it seems no one had trouble doing these two things that night, judging by this picture!

A special and warm welcome goes to two other local creative communities Warkop Troya and Surabaya Punya Cerita who attended and made the event more fun and packed! We appreciate your support for 99designs Cafe.

Our MC Ripta (third from right) surrounded by attendants showing some of the goodies on display during the event

Comic books by Warkop Troya

Merchandise and face sketch offered by local communities participating on the night

As always, we’d like to thank everyone who attended and those who helped us make the event possible!

Widya Mandala students who were kind enough to lend us a hand in documentation for the night!

A few attendants posing in front of the finished mural by SMS and 99designers

November

This month, we brought 99designs Cafe to the home of our biggest Indonesian designer community, Yogyakarta (Jogja)!

The city has long been known as the artistic hub of Indonesia, with more than a fair share of 99designers hailing from or around the city. So it’s no wonder the response for the Cafe was overwhelmingly huge there.

This month’s event was held at Legend Coffee, a laid-back cafe located at the centre of the city, with focus on games and all-round fun. We couldn’t have asked for a better venue, because despite the high-brow discussions that our speakers’ presentations encouraged, our ultimate goal was so that everyone enjoyed themselves – and judging from the pictures below, they did!

Legend Coffee provided for the attendants a familiar ambience with its house-style exterior

Both Sumbo and Ong hosted an open discussion session with attendants, where the former covered the topics of self-branding while the latter discussed the importance of concept and creativity. These were then followed by Sukriyadi’s presentation on inspiration and conceptualisation of character design.

On top of that, he also held a live drawing show, a whimsical illustration of the Indonesian 99designer community, which was unveiled at the end of the event.

The author

Sasha is part of the Designer Marketing team, based in Melbourne, Australia. Aside from developing content that helps 99designers to upskill and have fun designing, she also provides support for the Indonesian community. She was born in Indonesia, before moving to Melbourne at the age of 13. When not procrastinating, she likes swimming, writing and cooking.